An Integrated Assessment of Water Markets: Australia, Chile, China, South Africa and the USA

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three 'pillars' of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different water markets; (2) to track performance over time; and (3) to identify ways in which water markets might be adjusted by informed policy makers to achieve desired goals. The framework is used to identify strengths and limitations of water markets in: (1) Australia's Murray-Darling Basin; (2) Chile (in particular the Limarí Valley); (3) China (in particular, the North); (4) South Africa; and (5) the western United States. It identifies what water markets are currently able to contribute to integrated water resource management, what criteria underpin these markets, and which components of their performance may require further development

An Integrated Assessment of Water Markets: Australia, Chile, China, South Africa and the USA

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three ‘pillars’ of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different water markets; (2) to track performance over time; and (3) to identify ways in which water markets might be adjusted by informed policy makers to achieve desired goals. The framework is used to identify strengths and limitations of water markets in: (1) Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin; (2) Chile (in particular the Limarí Valley); (3) China (in particular, the North); (4) South Africa; and (5) the western United States. It identifies what water markets are currently able to contribute to integrated water resource management, what criteria underpin these markets, and which components of their performance may require further development.

An Integrated Assessment of Water Markets: Australia, Chile, China, South Africa and the USA

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three ‘pillars’ of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different water markets; (2) to track performance over time; and (3) to identify ways in which water markets might be adjusted by informed policy makers to achieve desired goals. The framework is used to identify strengths and limitations of water markets in: (1) Australia's Murray-Darling Basin; (2) Chile (in particular the Limarí Valley); (3) China (in particular, the North); (4) South Africa; and (5) the western United States. It identifies what water markets are currently able to contribute to integrated water resource management, what criteria underpin these markets, and which components of their performance may require further development.

Detection of an unidentified soft X-ray emission feature in NGC 5548

Context. NGC 5548 is an X-ray bright Seyfert 1 active galaxy. It exhibits a variety of spectroscopic features in the soft X-ray band, in particular including the absorption by the active galactic nucleus (AGN) outflows of a broad range of ionization states, with column densities up to 1027 m-2, and having speeds up to several thousand kilometers per second. The known emission features are in broad agreement with photoionized X-ray narrow and broad emission line models. Aims. We report on an X-ray spectroscopic study using 1.1 Ms XMM-Newton and 0.9 Ms Chandra grating observations of NGC 5548 spanning two decades. The aim is to search and characterize any potential spectroscopic features in addition to the known primary spectral components that are already modeled in high precision. Methods. For each observation, we modeled the data using a global fit including an intrinsic spectral energy distribution of the AGNs and the known distant X-ray absorbers and emitters. We utilized as much knowledge from previous studies as possible. The fit residuals were stacked and scanned for possible secondary features. Results. We detect a weak unidentified excess emission feature at ~18.4 Å (18.1 Å in the restframe). The feature is seen at > 5s statistical significance taking the look-elsewhere effect into account. No known instrumental issues, atomic transitions, or astrophysical effects can explain this excess. The observed intensity of the possible feature seems to anticorrelate in time with the hardness ratio of the source. However, even though the variability might not be intrinsic, it might be caused by the time-variable obscuration by the outflows. An intriguing possibility is the line emission from charge exchange between a partially ionized outflow and a neutral layer in the same outflow, or in the close environment. Other possibilities, such as emission from a highly ionized component with high outflowing speed, cannot be fully ruled out.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Transient obscuration event captured in NGC~3227 II. Warm absorbers and obscuration events in archival XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations

© The European Southern Observatory (ESO). This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141599The relationship between warm absorber (WA) outflows of active galactic nuclei and nuclear obscuration activities caused by optically thick clouds (obscurers) crossing the line of sight is still unclear. NGC 3227 is a suitable target for studying the properties of both WAs and obscurers because it matches the following selection criteria: WAs in both ultraviolet (UV) and X-rays, suitably variable, bright in UV and X-rays, and adequate archival spectra for making comparisons with the obscured spectra. In the aim of investigating WAs and obscurers of NGC 3227 in detail, we used a broadband spectral-energy-distribution model that is built in findings of the first paper in our series together with the photoionization code of SPEX software to fit the archival observational data taken by XMM-Newton and NuSTAR in 2006 and 2016. Using unobscured observations, we find four WA components with different ionization states (loga ζ [erg cm s -1] ∼-1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0). The highest-ionization WA component has a much higher hydrogen column density (∼10 22 cm -2) than the other three components (∼10 21 cm -2). The outflow velocities of these WAs range from 100 to 1300 km s -1, and show a positive correlation with the ionization parameter. These WA components are estimated to be distributed from the outer region of the broad line region (BLR) to the narrow line region. It is worth noting that we find an X-ray obscuration event in the beginning of the 2006 observation, which was missed by previous studies. We find that it can be explained by a single obscurer component. We also study the previously published obscuration event captured in one observation in 2016, which needs two obscurer components to fit the spectrum. A high-ionization obscurer component (loga ζa ∼a 2.80; covering factor C f a ∼a 30%) only appears in the 2016 observation, which has a high column density (∼10 23 cm -2). A low-ionization obscurer component (loga ζa ∼a 1.0a -a 1.9; C f a ∼a 20%-50%) exists in both 2006 and 2016 observations, which has a lower column density (∼10 22 cm -2). These obscurer components are estimated to reside within the BLR by their crossing time of transverse motions. The obscurers of NGC 3227 are closer to the center and have larger number densities than the WAs, which indicate that the WAs and obscurers might have different origins.Peer reviewe

Detection of an Unidentified Soft X-ray Emission Feature in NGC 5548

NGC~5548 is an X-ray bright Seyfert 1 active galaxy. It exhibits a variety of spectroscopic features in the soft X-ray band, including in particular the absorption by the AGN outflows of a broad range of ionization states, with column densities up to 1E27 /m^2, and having speeds up to several thousand kilometers per second. The known emission features are in broad agreement with photoionized X-ray narrow and broad emission line models. We report on an X-ray spectroscopic study using 1.1 Ms XMM-Newton and 0.9 Ms Chandra grating observations of NGC 5548 spanning two decades. The aim is to search and characterize any potential spectroscopic features in addition to the known primary spectral components that are already modeled in high precision. We detect a weak unidentified excess emission feature at 18.4 Angstrom (18.1 Angstrom in the restframe). The feature is seen at >5 sigma statistical significance taking into account the look elsewhere effect. No known instrumental issues, atomic transitions, and astrophysical effects can explain this excess. The observed intensity of the possible feature seems to anti-correlate in time with the hardness ratio of the source. However, the variability might not be intrinsic, it might be caused by the time-variable obscuration by the outflows. An intriguing possibility is the line emission from charge exchange between a partially ionized outflow and a neutral layer in the same outflow, or in the close environment. Other possibilities, such as emission from a highly-ionized component with high outflowing speed, cannot be fully ruled out.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Ready Both to Your and to My Hands: Mapping the Action Space of Others

To date, mutual interaction between action and perception has been investigated mainly by focusing on single individuals. However, we perceive affording objects and acts upon them in a surrounding world inhabited by other perceiving and acting bodies. Thus, the issue arises as to whether our action-oriented object perception might be modulated by the presence of another potential actor. To tackle this issue we used the spatial alignment effect paradigm and systematically examined this effect when a visually presented handled object was located close either to the perceiver or to another individual (a virtual avatar). We found that the spatial alignment effect occurred whenever the object was presented within the reaching space of a potential actor, regardless of whether it was the participant's own or the other's reaching space. These findings show that objects may afford a suitable motor act when they are ready not only to our own hand but also, and most importantly, to the other's hand. Our proposal is that this effect is likely to be due to a mapping of our own and the other's reaching space and we posit that such mapping could play a critical role in joining our own and the other's action

Active Wing Shaping Control Concept Using Composite Lattice-Based Cellular Materials

No abstract availabl

Exploring UK medical school differences: the MedDifs study of selection, teaching, student and F1 perceptions, postgraduate outcomes and fitness to practise.

BACKGROUND: Medical schools differ, particularly in their teaching, but it is unclear whether such differences matter, although influential claims are often made. The Medical School Differences (MedDifs) study brings together a wide range of measures of UK medical schools, including postgraduate performance, fitness to practise issues, specialty choice, preparedness, satisfaction, teaching styles, entry criteria and institutional factors. METHOD: Aggregated data were collected for 50 measures across 29 UK medical schools. Data include institutional history (e.g. rate of production of hospital and GP specialists in the past), curricular influences (e.g. PBL schools, spend per student, staff-student ratio), selection measures (e.g. entry grades), teaching and assessment (e.g. traditional vs PBL, specialty teaching, self-regulated learning), student satisfaction, Foundation selection scores, Foundation satisfaction, postgraduate examination performance and fitness to practise (postgraduate progression, GMC sanctions). Six specialties (General Practice, Psychiatry, Anaesthetics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery) were examined in more detail. RESULTS: Medical school differences are stable across time (median alpha = 0.835). The 50 measures were highly correlated, 395 (32.2%) of 1225 correlations being significant with p < 0.05, and 201 (16.4%) reached a Tukey-adjusted criterion of p < 0.0025. Problem-based learning (PBL) schools differ on many measures, including lower performance on postgraduate assessments. While these are in part explained by lower entry grades, a surprising finding is that schools such as PBL schools which reported greater student satisfaction with feedback also showed lower performance at postgraduate examinations. More medical school teaching of psychiatry, surgery and anaesthetics did not result in more specialist trainees. Schools that taught more general practice did have more graduates entering GP training, but those graduates performed less well in MRCGP examinations, the negative correlation resulting from numbers of GP trainees and exam outcomes being affected both by non-traditional teaching and by greater historical production of GPs. Postgraduate exam outcomes were also higher in schools with more self-regulated learning, but lower in larger medical schools. A path model for 29 measures found a complex causal nexus, most measures causing or being caused by other measures. Postgraduate exam performance was influenced by earlier attainment, at entry to Foundation and entry to medical school (the so-called academic backbone), and by self-regulated learning. Foundation measures of satisfaction, including preparedness, had no subsequent influence on outcomes. Fitness to practise issues were more frequent in schools producing more male graduates and more GPs. CONCLUSIONS: Medical schools differ in large numbers of ways that are causally interconnected. Differences between schools in postgraduate examination performance, training problems and GMC sanctions have important implications for the quality of patient care and patient safety

The Analysis of Teaching of Medical Schools (AToMS) survey: an analysis of 47,258 timetabled teaching events in 25 UK medical schools relating to timing, duration, teaching formats, teaching content, and problem-based learning.

BACKGROUND: What subjects UK medical schools teach, what ways they teach subjects, and how much they teach those subjects is unclear. Whether teaching differences matter is a separate, important question. This study provides a detailed picture of timetabled undergraduate teaching activity at 25 UK medical schools, particularly in relation to problem-based learning (PBL). METHOD: The Analysis of Teaching of Medical Schools (AToMS) survey used detailed timetables provided by 25 schools with standard 5-year courses. Timetabled teaching events were coded in terms of course year, duration, teaching format, and teaching content. Ten schools used PBL. Teaching times from timetables were validated against two other studies that had assessed GP teaching and lecture, seminar, and tutorial times. RESULTS: A total of 47,258 timetabled teaching events in the academic year 2014/2015 were analysed, including SSCs (student-selected components) and elective studies. A typical UK medical student receives 3960 timetabled hours of teaching during their 5-year course. There was a clear difference between the initial 2 years which mostly contained basic medical science content and the later 3 years which mostly consisted of clinical teaching, although some clinical teaching occurs in the first 2 years. Medical schools differed in duration, format, and content of teaching. Two main factors underlay most of the variation between schools, Traditional vs PBL teaching and Structured vs Unstructured teaching. A curriculum map comparing medical schools was constructed using those factors. PBL schools differed on a number of measures, having more PBL teaching time, fewer lectures, more GP teaching, less surgery, less formal teaching of basic science, and more sessions with unspecified content. DISCUSSION: UK medical schools differ in both format and content of teaching. PBL and non-PBL schools clearly differ, albeit with substantial variation within groups, and overlap in the middle. The important question of whether differences in teaching matter in terms of outcomes is analysed in a companion study (MedDifs) which examines how teaching differences relate to university infrastructure, entry requirements, student perceptions, and outcomes in Foundation Programme and postgraduate training